Vendor
by EXNativo
Summary: A warm meal? A cup of coffee? A helping hand with the reconstruction, or an audience with Death herself? Whatever it is that you need, the Vendor is more than capable of supplying. MoD!Godlike!Harry.
1. Chapter 1

Once Tony sees her, it's already too late.

The battle against the Chitauri has hit its full swing, now that Bruce has decided to join them. Where before it had been a desperate struggle against a superior force, now it was an even fight, overwhelming numbers against teamwork so suddenly perfect that Tony's head isn't only spinning due to the aerial manoeuvres he's put himself through. Quantity against quality in the purest sense of the phrase.

Impressively, there has yet to be any fatalities on Earth's side reported. That was sure to come later, after some of the rubble had been cleared, but it worked to keep Tony's mind on the battle and nothing else. Until he sees her, that is.

Her hair is blonde, so bright that it borders on white. Her skin is tanned and unblemished, her perfect face set into a small frown as she glances up at the alien ship that is about to crush her. She doesn't seem scared, doesn't seem to have realised her situation. Tony has, through his sensors that put human eyesight to shame a few hundred times over, and he can do nothing but watch as her death approaches her. The death that he'd been rushing over to distract, the death that he was too slow to prevent.

Her mouth moves in that moment. It's not a scream, as probably anybody else in her position would have done. Instead, she says a single word, one that even Tony, with his limited skills in lip-reading, can make out.

"Master."

And then, in a burst of black feathers, a bird is at her side. The appearance of it is instantaneous, sending out a small wave of energy that JARVIS immediately begins to analyse, and Tony can see its beady little eyes turn to glare at the approaching Leviathan. Then it opens its beak, and Tony's world is turned upside down.

The noise that it emits sounds like the chiming of a bell to Tony's ears, but through JARVIS' sensors and his own eyes, he can see the effect it is having on the aliens. The behemoth of a creature that had been bearing down on the woman and the bird veers wildly to the side as though struck by Banner, crashing through an entire city block that Tony can only hope is abandoned. It lets out a gurgle which shakes the ground, thrashing weakly for a moment before falling unnaturally still.

Every single Chitauri warrior between him and them falls over, dead before they hit the ground. All heat leaves their body as they collapse, spanning in an ever-widening circle, with the woman and her bird as the epicentre. Whether they be on the ground or in the air, it doesn't discriminate, until it reaches Tony's body.

For a moment, he's worried that he has died. There's an overwhelming sense of peace taking over his mind that makes him want to drop the armour and hug something. It passes after a moment, and Tony awakes to a field of dead aliens and a noticeable anxious lilt in JARVIS' synthesised voice.

 _"Sir, can you hear me?"_

"Y-yeah." Tony shakes the cobwebs from his mind, an action that only takes a few fractions of a second. He is Tony Stark, after all. "JARVIS, what just happened?"

 _"Sir, a pulse of unknown energy has just spread through the city. Scans indicate that every Chitauri currently in the city has lost their vitals, but it appears that no humans within the radius has been harmed."_

Tony once again focuses on the strange duo in the street. As he watched, the bird expands and shifts until a man with black hair is standing in its place. He's already having a hard enough time believing everything he's just seen, up until the man turns both bright green eyes in his direction, giving him a sly wink before both he and the woman simply… vanish.

"So they're on our side, huh?" The cloud of black feather that covered their exit falls to the ground. Feeling faint, Tony simply nods to himself. It's been a very long day, and he would have time to question this later. "Good. Great, even."

That said, he swoops low over the street, handing full control over the suit's trajectory to JARVIS while he looks over the devastated avenues. It is as his AI said, not a single Chitauri moves as he zips overhead. There's no reaction at all when he alights the sidewalk and takes a long, measured look around.

 _"Does anybody know what just happened?"_

The stunned disbelief that must have taken a hold over everyone is broken by Hawkeye's words, and Tony laughs before anybody else can speak up, tapping an armoured hand against his helmet, even though the gesture isn't necessary.

"We've got an enhanced, possibly two, in the field." He can remember that phrase from one of SHIELD's files that he'd hacked, once upon a time. It felt so long ago, back when he'd had enough free time to sit around for an entire evening and memorise emergency codes for an organisation that he'd never thought he'd have anything to do with. There's an odd silence that goes ignored as Tony continues, nudging a Chitauri's corpse with his foot as he does so.

"Tanned, blonde woman and a black-haired guy with green eyes, who can turn into a bird. The guy let out some sort of energy pulse that KO'd every Chitauri in the city. Might have even sent it through the portal, seeing as I'm not seeing any others coming through."

All is still for a moment, until…

 _"Green eyes, you said?"_

Tony frowns at the trepidation in Thor's voice. The man's a God, why would be concerned about this one guy? "Yeah, greenest I've ever seen, probably. Why, you know him?"

 _"…Oh dear."_

 _Now_ Tony's a bit concerned.

 **XxX**

The portal is closed, Loki has been pulled out of the hole the Hulk left him in and contained, and the team are sitting around a table in a restaurant most of them have never heard of before, waiting on their meals and for Fury and Thor to break their staring contest.

It's been this way for the last five minutes, and Tony has resorted to pulling out his browse the internet for conspiracy theories about what's happening in New York right now. He's interested in what has Thor so upset that he's demanded Nick Fury's presence outside of the Helicarrier, yes, but his armour is too dented right now for him to be comfortable on the edge of his seat.

Finally, after their food has arrived and everyone is already silently blaming him for this poor decision, Thor decides to speak.

"This realm has drawn the attention of the False Immortal."

Tony slides his phone away, ignoring the metal digging lightly into his stomach as he sits up straight. Across and to the left, Fury's irritated expression gives way to an irritated expression with the slightest amount of interest present. It's so faint that even JARVIS would have trouble picking up on it, but it's there.

"False Immortal?" Tony can only imagine how many plans for either recruitment or elimination are running through the Director's mind at the moment. Thor shakes his head, likely having guessed the same thing.

"There is a tale, that has passed down as fiction in Asgard since before I was but a baby. It began as the first vision of a novice Seer, and it tells the story of a young boy who evades Death to the point of conquering her."

"Of course Death is a her…" Clint mutters, too loud for it to have been an accident. Tony holds in his laughter, because he's not too keen on taking a punch from Natasha like Clint is now trying to fend off.

"That boy, upon becoming a man and the Master of Death, would then walk for all of eternity, with nobody but Death by his side. He would survive his people, his planet, and his universe. He, a mortal, would live beyond forever, reaching and surpassing the Gods themselves in strength and influence." Thor takes an agitated bite out of his shawarma. How that differed from a regular bite, Tony couldn't tell. "Scorned by his existence, the Gods would forever be at odds with this man, until such a time that he could prove himself just as mortal as his kin."

"And how long has this Master of Death been alive?" Tony had heard that tone before; Fury wanted a new Avenger, and if this guy was new to his powers, then he thought there was a chance he would get one. Sinking back into his seat, Tony surreptitiously slid his phone out of his pocket, opening the camera and hitting record the moment before Thor managed to swallow everything in his mouth. Hopefully, this would be good.

"Billions of years. Trillions. Quadrillions. Take your pick, it matters not." Fury looked like he'd just swallowed a lemon. It wasn't as grand as Tony had been hoping, but he would still be printing that expression onto a poster to hang somewhere around the tower. You never knew when you would need something to lift your spirits. "He has outlived countless universes before, and he will outlive both Midgard and Asgard. You would not ask a man how many breaths he has taken in his lifetime, would you?"

Fury wouldn't ask. He'd assign a team of experts to comb through footage and map out how many breaths were taken in a single day, which would then go on to be the basis for whatever mathematical formula would be used to give them the closest possible number. And then he would get a copy of that man's birth certificate down to the millisecond to prove it to him.

Just to challenge himself, Tony immediately began attempting to calculate how many breaths he'd ever taken.

Fury stands up and pushes his chair back under the table. He's not ordered anything, probably having known better than to risk it. With a scowl etched deeper into his face than skin would allow, he looks down at Thor, asking the only question that really matters in this situation.

"Is he dangerous?"

"Immensely." Comes the immediate reply. Thor tears another chunk from his food, eyes cask skywards and apparently missing the way Fury's hands clench and knuckles whiten. "Should you not provoke him, however, then nothing shall come of his presence."

"You know an awful lot about this Master of Death." Clint points out, silently asking the question that they all want answered as he pushes his barely touched shawarma towards Bruce.

Thor stares at all of them in turn, gaze judging as he chews slowly. Tony can feel the weight of that gaze, and in that moment, he has to wonder. How old is Thor? How much does he know that Tony doesn't, couldn't?

"This is not a topic to be discussed elsewhere." They all nod, unnecessary as it may be. After all, half of them are super spies, and the other half aren't exactly the type to gossip about something this truly important. Well, perhaps Tony is, but even he can see how heavy this is. "He is… an ancient friend of the throne of Asgard."

"A friend?" Tony can't help but feel slightly disappointed. No ancient war-time stories or ridiculously complex treaty agreements? Where was the fun in that?

Apparently, his thoughts are easy to read, as Thor pins him with a blank stare that wouldn't have looked out of place on Loki's face. Brothers indeed.

"I have watched this man destroy a universe with a click of his fingers." None of them ever knew Thor's voice could get so dry. It is usually so booming, that hearing him speak as though explaining a simple concept to a stupid child is disconcerting at best. Thor shoves the last of his shawarma into his mouth, one eyebrow raising as he catches Tony's eyes once more.

"Is that not a man you would want as a friend, rather than an enemy?"

None of them really have anything to say to that.

 **XxX**

Early the next morning, earlier than he's ever woken up before, Tony stares at the image on one of his lab's monitors, eyebrows raised in abject disbelief.

The picture is settled on a food truck parked beside one of the many devastated buildings in downtown Manhattan. A group of men wearing high-vis jackets are crowded around in a loose line, laughing along to whatever the black-haired man behind the counter is saying. Beside him, a blonde woman with tanned skin is handling a coffeemaker with expert grace, spending more time watching her co-worker than she does watching the beverages she's making.

Tony runs the picture through facial-recognition five times. Each time comes up with a perfect match, holding up beyond any doubt. He watches as the man hands one of the workers his coffee, waving a hand dismissively once wallets are pulled out of pockets. The workers look like they're arguing for a moment, before they step back one by one and allow those behind them to order.

A single tap of the keyboard has JARVIS saving the coordinates of the man who single-handedly wiped out an entire invasion. A moment later, Tony's suit is rushing towards him in parts.

He takes off right as Bruce walks in, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

Tony Stark is not a man of subtlety.

Black Widow and Hawkeye, Natasha and Clint, are two people that live and breathe subtlety. Bruce, when not embroiled in rage, has also learned the art of not drawing attention to himself while in public. How those three manage when they have the looks of movie stars is beyond even his brilliant mind, but even then, one of the very few things that had always been out of his reach is empathy.

In fairness, Tony is almost certain he would be spectacular at it, if he wanted to try. While landing among a group of working class people in his Iron Man armour, blaring _We Are The Champions_ through several different speakers likely _isn't_ the best way to start.

Tony smiles and waves as he makes his way to the front of the line, the people he's bypassing too enamoured with his simple appearance to care. He stops halfway to accept a somewhat awkward hug, though judging from the lucky woman's excited babble, she either doesn't notice or doesn't care. The crowd has grown in the minutes between finding the Master of Death's location and the travel, likely a result of his own arrival.

Eventually, the surrounding populace figure out that his coming here isn't due to random circumstance. He absently nods his thanks as people begin to step aside, hurrying the last few moments to the food truck. It wouldn't do for the… alien? God? It wouldn't do well for the entity to leave before he gets a chance to talk. Once he's close enough, he places his hands on the counter, and he is greeted by a collection of warmth before he can even make a single noise.

Burger, coffee, and smile.

Steam slowly curls in the air above the coffee cup as the man (Or was he a boy? He was shorter up close than Tony had been expecting) holds it out to him. The burger is filled with different meats and vegetables, stacked high, immaculately balanced, with sunlight glistening off juices and looking entirely too much like something the Capsicle would shove into his mouth… and Tony realises in that moment that he can't actually remember the last time he ate.

(There was a small bite of shawarma in between a pitiful breakfast and now, but after a restless night and fending off an alien invasion, he feels justified to a little forgetfulness.)

The man hasn't yet said anything, so Tony simply accepts the offered items. The world around then has gotten quiet, too quiet for it to have happened naturally. Tony glances around, not appearing scared in the least, because he holds very little fear in that moment.

If he had, then he would have difficulty hiding it. After all, Tony Stark is not a man of subtlety.

Everyone has stopped. Or, it is more accurate to say that every _thing_ has stopped. Tony can see birds on the sidewalk that are frozen in the act of pecking for errant crumbs, the cars that had moments before been bustling for more space on the packed roads all paused. Mannequins filled the street, people with limbs defying gravity and expressions stuck like an adage concerning changing winds.

The only people who aren't affected seem to be the two in the food truck before him. The lady is bustling away further in the back, while the man is swiping across his grill with a rag.

Tony takes everything in, the cars and pedestrians and wildlife, documenting the information at speeds that would put some computers to shame. He then turns back to the thing in front of him and performs the first action that comes to mind.

He takes a bite out of his burger.

It's great. Not the best he's ever tasted, but still great.

"So what are you, exactly?"

Tony speaks before he's even finished chewing. Some food slips out of his mouth while it is open, which he chases after in a fashion that is distinctly unattractive. Interestingly enough, when the piece of lettuce hits the ground it vanishes; to where, Tony doesn't know, nor does he like his chances of finding out.

The being before him inclines its head slightly in greeting. The woman working behind him hides a silent giggle behind the coffee cup in her hand. In a move that feels contrary to his very reason for existing, Tony ignores her.

"My name is Harry." The now identified Harry's voice is startlingly… British. Not that Tony really had any expectations as to what 'Harry' would sound like. He was barely expecting a human language at all. "I doubt you'll believe me, but I am human."

Tony allows a second to himself to contemplate that.

"Ah." He takes another bite of his burger, nodding his head as he chews. Damn, it is a very good burger. "Fair enough. I believe you."

Harry has no reason to lie to him, after all, not when it's apparent that the very laws of death don't apply to him. And even so, The Hulk is technically human, so Tony can consider his views officially expanded.

Harry laughs. He laughs quietly, like an old man remembering a grand joke a friend told him five decades ago. Tony takes a sip from his coffee and immediately decides to never order another ever again unless the situation is dire; his personality is addictive enough as is, and there is no viable excuse for how awake he feels in that moment. Today would be a day of scientific achievement and jittery hands, he can already tell.

"A lot happens in your mind, Tony Stark. So much that I don't even understand some of it." Harry has turned back to his cooking, reaching for tools and spices that Tony never bothered to learn the names of. The man moves with familiarity, not needing to look to see where what he needs is resting, not having to speak for his as-of-yet unnamed friend to hand him exactly what he's asking of her. "That hasn't happened to me in a while."

"You can read minds?" That's a significant revelation. Part of Tony feels as though he should feel exposed, offended, perhaps even violated. After a moment, he finds that he doesn't mind nearly as much as he probably should, because he can't wait to see Fury's face when he tells him. "Ooh, let's play a game. What am I thinking about right now?"

Harry glances at Tony from the corner of his eye. There's a glimmer behind his glasses.

"You're admiring my colleague's behind?"

The behind in question, as well as everything else connected to it give a slight jump. True to form, Tony's eyes slowly slide up from where they had been resting. They travel past long, light hair and alight on a pretty face, the woman in question shooting him a raised eyebrow from over her shoulder.

Because he is not a subtle man, Tony simply gives her a roguish grin and winks, before turning back to Harry.

"Damn, you're good." The burger is only a quarter of the way gone, yet Tony already knows that he wants to leave with another one. "So how old are you?"

Harry gives Tony a look that the engineer can't quite identify. His face is blank, devoid of all emotion, but Tony can't help but feel that it's all still there anyway. Like a veil that he can't, or shouldn't, pull to the side.

"I don't think you're ready to hear the number of zeroes in that answer."

Tony can't help it; he scoffs. He builds and programs his own robots, has built the single most advanced artificial intelligence known to the planet. Zeroes, along with ones, make up a significant portion of his life. He decides to not push that particular issue, however, because Harry has supplied him with food and coffee and both are vastly better than anything he'd been expecting to consume today.

A quick glance around confirms that everything is still frozen. Later on, Tony would have to look into how he was still breathing when the air itself was still.

"How about a question that has no zeroes then? Harry tilts his head, gesturing Tony to go forth. The gesture is appreciated, but it wasn't like Tony wasn't going to ask anyway. He is a curious genius, after all. "Why'd you help out yesterday? Shouldn't death be impartial, or something?"

Harry begins to laugh uproariously. It's so sudden that he has to rest one hand against the counter to keep from falling over, and Tony drops his burger, a nanosecond from instinctually activating the repulsor beams in his palms before his brain catches up with him.

The burger stops in mid-air centimetres above the ground, before flying back into Tony's hand just as quickly as it had fallen. It isn't as big a deal as Tony feels it should be.

"I am not death, Mr. Stark. I'm the Master of Death. Once you die, then there is nothing more that I will do for you." Harry takes his glasses away from his face, rubbing at his eyes with a sleeve. His clothes are so boring that Tony hadn't even paid them any attention, which is probably by design, now that he takes the time to notice and think about it. "But until that point, there is no reason in cutting life short in the events that happened yesterday. Tell me, Mr. Stark, what purpose would it serve for mortals to die in a battle demanded and carried out by Gods?"

Tony just shrugs and returns to his burger, looking for all the world uninterested in the conversation. It couldn't be further from the truth, he's just never paid any mind to philosophy until recently and still wasn't as good at it as he would have wished.

"Perhaps life is not fair, but it's not callous, and neither am I." Tony watches as a sack of potatoes floats up behind Harry. The man waves his hand, and the bag contorts for a moment, before tipping upside down and pouring a series of perfectly sliced vegetables into a deep-fryer that Tony could have sworn hadn't been tucked away into that corner a moment ago. "The Chitauri are a race that I have interacted with before, and suffice it to say that win or lose, I granted them a painless death as opposed to what was waiting for them. Attacking a planet as new as Earth for the sake of a grudge has already thrown them out of whatever favour they may have had with the powers that be. Right now, I'm just hoping that knowledge of me being here will distract them from proper punishment."

Tony is now halfway through his burger, the coffee finished and cup having been thrown expertly into a bin a little way down the road. He hasn't really given anything conceptual much thought over the last little while; having no real means of getting answers through his available equipment typically put him in a foul mood. There were certain things that couldn't be tested in a lab, and it was on Tony's list to build machines that could circumvent that little hiccup as soon as possible.

Until then, it was far more productive to continue with that which he'd already been doing, rather than run his own mind in circles. It wasn't even on him to understand this type of threat. As Fury was often eager to point out, he is merely a _consultant._

"Cool- is that lobster? Hmm, good burger- Ahem." Tony finally chokes on a bit of burger, pounding his metal chest plate with a gauntlet ineffectually until he remembers how to swallow correctly. "I wasn't actually expecting you to tell me."

Harry laughs once more. This time it is far more contained, hardly even a chuckle.

"Short of condemning yourself, Tony, you can't force us to interact again. Considering what could have been yesterday, I doubt some things."

Ironically enough, Tony feels a chill run down his spine, like someone has just stepped over the spot of his future gravestone.

"What could have been?" He repeats, wracking his mind for anything yesterday that could have proven deadly. There was the invasion, obviously, and that little moment he shared with Loki, but aside from that, he'd probably been the one on the team putting himself in the least amount of danger throughout the entire debacle.

Harry neglects to answer him, having already turned back to the grill. He puts the finishing touch on a series of burgers, wraps, and other assorted barbecued foods, his female helper putting each into their own paper bag as he finishes. Two trays of coffee are stacked neatly on the counter already, and under Tony's watchful eye, Harry pulls out a paper bag of similar size to the others out of thin air, following that by waving his hand over the assorted bags. Small pictures appear along the sides of the bags, a shield carrying a star and a bow being the only two Tony can catch a glimpse of before Harry is waving his hand again and the bags are moving.

The float into the bag, heedless of the fact that it should have struggled to contain even one of them. The coffee trays follow them in, blatantly ignoring the laws of physics as their significantly wider edges disappear into the paper bag's depths.

"Take these to your teammates, Mr. Stark." The bag's top is curled in such a way as to fit perfectly into his gauntlet's fist. Even looking directly at it, Tony can barely feel that it's there. It has absolutely no weight, despite the contents, and he's already drawing up schematics in his head for how he wants to run tests on it later. "It's quite likely we'll meet again sometime soon. Say goodbye, Death."

The single word brings Tony up short, and his head whips around to see who Harry is talking to. The blonde woman is eyeing him with obvious amusement when his gaze falls on her, mimicking his earlier roguish grin and wink perfectly. The armour has never felt this uncomfortable around his very alive flesh more than in that moment.

Death says nothing to him, and in that moment, Tony has a decision to make. His choice comes to him quite quickly, not feeling like the life-altering event it very clearly is.

He inclines his head to Harry, who waves in response. He then turns his back on Death, and blasts off with a roar of engines, rock music, and the hustle and bustle of the reanimated city.

Nobody who looks up into the sky after him, with no knowledge of what has just happened to them, can call him a subtle man.


End file.
